- Well that certainly takes care of that. Up to this point, whatever criticisms you may have had of New York Yankees slugger Alex Fraud-riguez - greedy, cheats on his wife, frosts his tips, can’t come through in the clutch, soft - one thing you couldn’t say about him was that he was a steroid user and confirmed cheater. Turns out you actually could have been saying that about him since way back in 2003, when he won the American League home run title and the AL Most Valuable Player award as a shortstop for the Texas Rangers, and you would have been right. As A-Fraud himself admitted in an interview with Peter Gammons, he took performance-enhancing drugs between 2001-03, three seasons of cheating confirmed both by his own admission and a positive test for two anabolic steroids in 2003. He belted 156 home runs during those seasons, second in all of baseball only to another confirmed ‘roider, Bar-roid Bonds. A-Fraud is actually one of 104 players who tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball's '03 survey testing, with A-Fraud’s name popping up on a list the somehow made its way into the wrong hands over the weekend. At the time, there were no penalties for positive tests and under the terms of a joint agreement with the MLB Players Association, the testing was conducted to determine if it was necessary to impose mandatory random drug testing across the major leagues in 2004. Seeing as this positive test occurred more than five years ago, you have to assume that a) A-Fraud knew of it, and b) he and his agent had gone over how to handle a worst-case scenario in which the results were made positive. Or maybe not, because when initially confronted by Sports Illustrated at a gym in Miami, A-Fraud declined to discuss his 2003 test results. "You'll have to talk to the union," said Rodriguez. ”I'm not saying anything." He then (probably) had quite a few hours behind closed doors with his agent, Scott Boras, and they decided that their best plan of attack was to sit down with a respected voice like Gammons and come clean (allegedly). Zero points for apologizing when your testing information was found by federal agents armed with search warrants who seized the '03 test results from Comprehensive Drug Testing, Inc., of Long Beach, Calif. The seizure took place in April 2004 as part of the government's investigation into 10 major league players linked to the BALCO scandal, and somehow that information made its way out into the open, forcing A-Fraud’s hand. According to sources who have seen the test results, A-Fraud tested positive for testosterone and an anabolic steroid known by the brand name Primobolan. Primobolan is also known by the chemical name methenolone and can be injected or orally administered. It’s also pretty freaking expensive, as a 12-week cycle can cost $500 (not so much of an issue when you’ve inked the fattest contract in baseball history). It’s also detectable for a shorter period of time by drug tests than other, more popular steroids and helps boost strength via lean muscle while not resulting in the typical bulk that would tip off observers to steroid usage. What struck me most, watching all of the coverage, was how surreal it was to see A-Fraud, a guy who had been perceived as clean while the enveloping cloud of the steroids era had descended on some of baseball’s biggest names, forever soiled as one of the faces of this sad time in the sport. Never again will you be able to look at him and have your first thought be anything other than confirmed steroid user………….
- All of the action centered on an unusual place in tonight’s Heroes: Russellville, Arkansas. That’s where the plane carrying all of the captured people with powers (I’m calling them PWP from here on out, easier to write and takes up less space) crashed at the end of last week’s episode. This week’s episode was basically told as a flashback, 48 hours after the crash, as Nathan recounts the events of the past two days in a phone conversation with his mother Angela. As Nathan tells it, the captives scattered after the crash, with Nathan dispensing his team, led by the prickly, assertive Hunter (or The Hunter, as the show is calling him) in to clean up the mess. The Hunter orders an air strike to destroy the wreckage from the crash, but all of the PWP have escaped and are on the run. Peter Petrelli links up with Tracy Strauss, Nathan’s former lady friend, in the woods near the crash and together they formulate a plan to help their cause. After jumping two agents sent in to help capture the PWP’s, they use one of the agent’s phones to contact Nathan and set up an ambush a few miles down the road at a historic roadside landmark. Tracy tells Nathan it’s a trap to set up Peter and that he needs to come alone, but Nathan is predictably suspicious that Tracy really wants to just turn Peter in and be allowed to go back to her old, normal life. It’s after dark when Nathan shows up, but when Tracy shows herself, he reveals that he hasn’t come alone and has H.R.G. and the Hunter with him, both with the laser sights on their sniper rifles trained on Tracy and Peter, once he comes out and shows himself. Peter takes Nathan hostage, willing to put his own brother in harm’s way because as he told Tracy, “He’s not my brother anymore.” H.R.G. has a clean shot on Peter but doesn’t take it, despite the Hunter ordering him to. Peter uses the chance to throw Nathan aside and fly off. He can fly because he has his powers back - sort of. Instead of being able to absorb the power of anyone he meets and hold onto them all, he can now only hold one at a time and loses that power if he picks up a new one. Because he was in contact with Nathan, that meant he could fly. Elsewhere, other escaped PWP’s are working their own escape plans. The trio of Matt Parkman, Mohinder Suresh and Hiro Nakamura (an American, an Indian guy and a Japanese guy, quite the U.N. of escaped cons) link up and make a run for it, happening upon a trailer that they are led to after Parkman snaps into an Isaac Mendez-like trance and takes them there. Parkman breaks in and retrieves a piece of paper and some paint, which he then uses to paint multiple pictures of the future, just as he did last week when a vision of the now-deceased future painter Usutu visited him at his New York apartment and told him he must now become a prophet for the world and show them what the future holds, just as Isaac Mendez and Usutu did before him. While Parkman paints, Mohinder and Hiro pull some clothes hanging on a clothesline outside the trailer and change into them. Once Matt finishes painting and snaps out of his trance, he analyzes the paintings and sees that one of them shows his wife Daphne at the site of the plane crash, shot and in trouble. Matt returns to the crash site to help her even though he has no idea how she got the site in the first place. How Daphne ended up at the crash site is that she first used her super speed to go to Japan and find Ando Masahasha, Hiro’s pal, because she was looking for help finding Parkman after he failed to come home. After checking in at Hiro and Ando’s super secret hideout (which he apparently blabbed about to everyone he met), she found Ando at a bar and together, they set out for Russellville after Ando failed trying to book a flight there (doubt any airline anywhere flies there). With Ando’s power to magnify the powers of others and Daphne’s super speed, they were in Arkansas in no time. Once there, they see Claire Bennet in the custody of agents and look to help her. After being given numerous chances by both her real (Nathan) and adopted (H.R.G) fathers to but out of the ongoing persecution of PWP and live a normal life by going back to Costa Verde and going off the college, Claire is now in cuffs and awaiting a decision on her fate. Daphne zips in, frees her and speeds off, taking her to a hill where part of the wreckage from the crash remains. At that point, Parkman, Hiro and Mohinder show up, as do several agents and the Hunter. They unleash a hail of bullets on the PWP’s, fulfilling Matt’s prophetical painting by shooting Daphne in the chest. Matt is able to stave off the rest of the attack by using his mind control powers to force the agents to turn on each other and shoot their comrades. That leaves just the Hunter, who continues riddling the group with bullets until Claire stands up as a human shield and takes all of the hits. The rest of the group escapes and she is re-captured and taken back to her two dads. The decision is made to send her back to Costa Verde, where she arrives to her mother Sandra, who has been told that Claire was actually out visiting colleges. Claire feels bad about leaving the other PWP’s and their fight, but she receives a text message from an anonymous number, a message from someone who claims to hate “them” as much as she does and urging her to be ready and wait for her chance to rejoin the fight. Around the same time, Peter, Matt, Mohinder, Hiro and Ando are assembling around a picnic table outside of a small church not far from the crash site, a country church in the middle of nowhere where they can plot their next move. They again pore over Parkman’s paintings, including one that shows Hiro at a location in India, standing alongside of a blond woman. Another shows Mohinder and Matt, buying guns on the street. Hiro says it’s his destiny to get his power back and stay in the battle, even though back at the trailer, Mohinder urged him to turn himself in and leave the battle because he no longer has his powers. Peter seems to take over the leadership role, telling he other four they must abandon every connection to their lives before they were captured, go underground and be prepared for the day when the charge led by Nathan comes after them. And lest you think there was no Sylar this week, he had plenty of screen time. After capturing and torturing Agent Simmons, part of the team sent to capture or kill him last week, Sylar sets up shop in a house half a block from the home of his biological father, Samson Gray, who he was looking to find last week when he was attacked by Simmons and his team. Once the residents of the house, a woman named Mary and her teenage son Luke, come home, the fun begins. Simmons is tied to a chair with a knife through his hand, further binding him to the chair. Sylar uses his telepathic powers to restrain Mary and Luke in chairs and tells Simmons that he will torture them both in front of the agent unless he tells Sylar where his father is. In the meantime, Sylar uses another of his powers, detecting lies, to psychoanalyze the troubled relationship between Mary and her son. He infuriates Luke so much that the boy unleashes a wave of heat from his hand, showing that he has powers of his own. Sylar is impressed and has Luke show off his power again by melting a small toy action figure. Luke admits he can burn things, vaporize water and wreak havoc with Pacemakers using his power. When his words divert Sylar’s attention, Agent Simmons manages to free himself and go for his gun to shoot Sylar in the back of the head. However, Luke has struck a bond with Sylar and uses his power to save his new pal, killing Simmons with a heat burst because he believes that Sylar truly understands him and can help him. Mary is horrified, but together Sylar and Luke take off in her car after Luke promises that he can take Sylar to where his father is. They drive away in Mary’s station wagon, headed for parts unknown. Things wrap up with Nathan hanging up with Angela, who refuses to agree to turn Peter in if he comes to her for help because she feels slighted that Nathan went to the president with his plan to capture PWP’s instead working with her. Nathan then walks down a long corridor where he speaks briefly with Tracy, telling her that she won't be going back to her old life and having her restrained as a tube is placed up her nose, pumping a substance into her body to inhibit her powers as a black hood is placed over her head, just like what was done to her and the other PWP’s captured and herded onto the plane last episode. She tries to get through to Nathan, yelling, “You’re one of us!”, but to no avail. Nathan walks back down the corridor, off into the darkness. All in all, a crap load of action and details for one episode, but an exciting ride from start to finish. Can’t wait for next week………
- If you’ve spent any time on Facebook or have heard stories like that of former University of Texas football player Buck Burnett or the former New England Patriots cheerleader who were both fired or kicked off their respective squad because of items they posted on Facebook, you know that social networking sites have a unique capacity for showing what ginormous morons some people are. That someone was placed on administrative leave for pictures posted on the site isn’t surprising, but what is unusual is that this time it was a teacher who made the stupid, so to speak, not a student. Travel with me, if you will, to Beaver Dam, Wisc., where a Beaver Dam teacher who posted a prominent photograph of herself with a gun on Facebook has not been allowed to return to her school and placed on administrative leave. Betsy Ramsdale must now wait as the school district “collects more information” and decides here fate. According to Beaver schools superintendent Donald Childs, there is no timetable for when Ramsdale could return to her post. She likely will return, as putting up a pic of yourself pointing a rifle at the camera on your Facebook page isn’t exactly something you can be fired for unless therre’s more to it than that. I do marvel that Ramsdale can be so stupid, as are many others, with this sort of thing. You have to know that there are security settings on Facebook that restrict who can see what on your profile page and even keep those you want to shut out from seeing anything about you at all. Make use of those measures and your’e not having the problem of a fellow
school staff member discovering that rifle-toting pic. Childs characterized Ramsdale’s intent in posting the picture as nothing “hostile,” but declined to elaborate. He also said that he doubted Ramsdale would face further disciplinary action over the picture and actually labeled her as "a good and capable teacher.” Heck, she might be even better after this stunt. What student is going to give any trouble to a teacher who they know is packing a rifle at home and isn’t shy about pulling that gun out? Come to think of it, maybe more high school teachers should be slamming pics of themselves toting rifles up on their Facebook pages……..
- Lumping all chick flicks into one category and judging them thusly is a bad idea. You have some, like Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, for example, that are actually pretty good movies. Then you have unwatchable pieces of crap like the new romantic comedy "He's Just Not That Into You," a movie based on a book that manages to make me glad that I’ve never actually read the book simply based on the horrific quality of the film itself. The film is narrated by Gigi (Ginnifer Goodwin), an incredibly insecure single woman, tries to figure out her relationship with Alex (Justin Long), a womanizing restaurant manager who has trying to help her land a guy. She hearkens back to the 1987 John Hughes flick "Some Kind of Wonderful" to make sense of her plight. Yeah, because John Hughes movies are a great place for life-planning advice. But in spite of that, Gigi forges on with the bizarre analogy, likening herself to the Eric Stoltz character in the movie, with Alex as the equivlanet Mary Stuart Masterson's Watts -- the friend who wants to be more than a friend. And yes, this reference to an old, mediocre movie is every bit as dumb as it sounds, but fortunately that fits well with the rest of a movie that’s neither smart nor original. It feels assembled, processed and contrived throughout, trying to use clichés like Cosmo articles, "Sex and the City" voice-overs and just an all-around staged feel. In other words, good movies get you to forget that you’re watching a fictional film for a couple of hours and helps you buy into the premise, but this one never does. And as much as I love one of Justin Long’s former shows, Ed, he’s not a great actor and trying to play a player with a heart of gold, he’s less than stellar. Add in the marginal acting abilities of Ben Affleck (better served as a director, no doubt) playing one half of a devoted couple and paired with Jennifer Aniston as a guy who refuses to make the plunge and propose and you have a recipe for a really crappy movie. Marginally decent are Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Connelly as a married couple who've so lost their spark. Of course, the fact that Cooper’s character is hitting it with Scarlett Johansson (playing a hot yoga instructor) on the side doesn’t hurt, if only because a few minutes of screen time for the uber-hot Johansson can make any movie better. The premise seems to be that women are deluding themselves about love and need to get over their dramatic ways and embrace a more realistic view of the world. Not that anyone cares what the message is when it’s delivered in such an abysmal film…..
- Some people go to Atlantic City with hopes of striking it rich and walking away with thousands of dollars more than they arrived with. With dollar signs all but flashing in their eyes, these tools actually think they’re going to get over on the casinos, which have built large, shiny buildings dozens of stories tall based on fleecing these very gamblers out of their cash at various games of chance. However, can’t say as I’ve ever heard of two people hitting up AC and looking to make a profit….off of Coca-Cola vending machines. Such was the plan of a couple that touched up some 60 Coke machines located on various floors of the Taj Mahal Casino Resort in Atlantic City, making off with $15,000 without sitting down at a single slot machine or poker table. Authorities say the two worked nearly every floor of the hotel, using a master key to open the machines and clean out all the cash inside. Surveillance footage shows the two in action, which is a problem for the thieves because already authorities say they think they know who the woman is. Convinced they’ve identified half of this criminal duo, they are now searching for her and her male companion. They also believe that these two may be responsible for other similar thefts from vending machines in southern New Jersey. Gotta say, it’s a pretty savvy move, hitting up vending machines. After all, they’re not what most people in any casino/resort are paying attention to. Maybe if these two criminals had bothered to invest a little time and effort into disguising themselves, they would have gotten away with this and scored a small blow against the casinos, a shot for the little guy…….
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